Not enough hours in the day...

Well, I've been a bit quiet lately - life has been busy!

I signed up to Twitter weeks ago - and you may now follow me via my link, over there  ->

I've been too busy to tweet anything, so it's not very interesting reading at the moment!

I did manage to pause and take photos of all the things I've been doing, but there were so many photos I ended up making collages for this post.  And this is just skimming the surface, there's so much more I want to be getting on with - what a lovely feeling to be inspired!

First up, some mucking about with paper and fabric snippets to make some bits and pieces to sell at Art Trail this summer - and multitasking with the laptop, looking at the HMRC website of all things!

And I was looking at the HMRC website because I taught my first solo class last Tuesday - and immediately thought "why haven't I done this before?".  A lovely busy afternoon, the students even helped to put the tables away at the end, and there were two posh biscuits left over to take home to the Girl and Mr G - so everyone was happy!  We made cords and tassels:

Then I noticed that Gina had been making tassels too, but posh ones with beads.  So I had to have a go at some beads, something I've been meaning to do for ages.  It was huge fun getting out the soldering mat, heat gun and soldering iron (not least because it winds up Mr G, as it just confirms what he already thinks ie. that I've lost my marbles...) - and I thought I wasn't a burny-melty-kinda-gal!  My beads aren't as nice as Gina's though...I'm teaching embroidered bead making in a few weeks, but luckily I hadn't planned to do melty-hot ones, or I'd be feeling a tad discouraged!

And then finally, the thing that has been occupying me the most: Maggie Grey's new book arrived in the post and I stole all the Girl's pipecleaners.  Girl was very cross, but I was very excited so didn't care (but I have bought her some replacements now...).  Pipecleaners!  Who knew?

First I used a "novelty yarn" to make a hairy multicoloured bracelet:

And then I played around with fabric wrapping to make this bracelet:

Both these two bracelets were made on the spur of the moment, with no real thought as to what I was doing or the best order to do things - I just jumped right in with my stolen pipecleaners.  As a result, they took longer than they should have, and I knew I would do things differently if I did them again.

So I had another go!

I'm yet to finish these two little projects - destined to be another bracelet and a brooch:

I'm very excited by this!

Finally, I managed to package up a bit more foil today and will have a grand total of one more pack in the shop!  If you leave me a comment, I'll enter your name into a draw for a little pack of bronze/gold like the one in the shop - the winning name will be chosen by the Whippet in a few days' time...